I run to the manor, loop around the back and stare up the oak. Light spills from Willow’s window. He’s awake. I try chucking a few stones up, but the branches get in the way and I fail to draw his attention. There’s only one thing for it: I have to climb that shit of a tree.
I recall Ash’s advice, and slowly, steadily, inch up the branches, never freeing more than one limb at a time, testing the boughs before I put my weight on them. I get numerous twigs in my face, leaves in my hair, and I graze my hand a couple of times on hidden shards of bark, but I make pretty good progress.
I near the top, never looking down, always looking up, anticipating the break in the leaves and the view of the stars, enjoying the wind in my face as the branches thin. And as I near Willow’s window, ready to reach out a trembling fist to rap on the pane, I actually have a massive grin plastered across my face. Me – Violet – climbing a monstrous tree, making a Gem fall in love with her. I feel invincible. I shimmy across a bough, fortunately strong enough to take my weight, and a little giggle escapes my mouth. The light from his window illuminates my hands as they splay before me. And finally, I pull my body upwards so I look straight into his room.
He lies in bed. I can see the satin bedding crumpled around his perfect, muscular body. The shape of his hips, the line of his torso, the faint scars encircling his upper thighs. He sleeps, his chest rising and falling rhythmically.
And he isn’t the only person naked in that bed – my own personal midway twist.
She lies beside him, her golden hair strewn across the pillow, her long, bronzed legs entwined with his.
And all the men and women merely players.
Alice.
Alice’s eyes snap open. She looks straight at me. At first, she must see only what I see, reflected back at her from the panes, a world of soft light and bronzed shapes. But I see her focus change, her expression move from contentedness to shock as she looks through her own image and meets my gaze. Slowly, her expression shifts to acceptance, like she always knew I would find her here.
I have only one instinct: to flee. I shuffle back down the branch, tears landing on the wood before me, and begin the mad scramble down the tree. I forget all of Ash’s advice – tumbling, scrabbling, bouncing through the boughs, a haze of twigs and leaves biting at my hands and my scalp. I lose my footing on the final branch and the ground seems to rise up from nowhere, smacking my back and knocking the wind from my lungs. I just lie there, glaring up at that bastard tree, gulping down empty, air-free mouthfuls, feeling like I’m going to suffocate, trying to get that hateful image from my brain.
I hear her before I see her. The crunch of her feet on the gravel, the soft yet frantic cry of my name. ‘Violet. Violet.’
She skids into a kneeling position beside me. ‘Did you fall badly?’
‘Yes,’ I manage to squeak.
‘Did you hit your head?’
My hand travels to my brow. ‘No.’
She helps me into a sitting position. The zingy sweetness of her perfume calms me, but then I just feel angry with myself. I study her for a moment. She wears no make-up, her hair extensions curl freely around her shoulders, and she’s wrapped a white satin sheet around her body, probably to hide her nakedness rather than protect her from the cold. She looks so natural, and for a moment, she’s just Alice again.
‘What’s going on?’ The vulnerability in my voice surprises me as much as her.
‘I’m . . . I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.’
‘Don’t you want to go home?’
‘I thought I did. But then this happened.’
‘What? Willow?’
‘I guess . . . and more.’ She sweeps her hand in a dramatic circle. ‘Wonderland.’
‘Shit, Alice. You’re not doing this for love? You just want to be one of them.’ I bumble to my feet. My lungs still ache, my body’s still oxygen-starved, but the anger gains strength and I’m able to pull myself upright.
‘Why not?’ She stands too, the sheet folding around her like a carefully sculptured piece of royal icing. ‘The Gems are kind to me. The Imps treated me like a leper, they cut off my hair, tried to hang me, locked me in a tower.’
‘Yeah, they tried to hang me too, remember?’
‘So you get it then?’
‘No, as a matter of fact, I don’t. If you’d seen what I’ve seen, the way the Gems really treat the Imps, you’d soon change your tune.’
‘And maybe, if you were in my shoes, you’d change yours.’
My fists clench in frustration. ‘For God’s sake, Alice. The Gems only treat you like that because they think you’re one of them.’
‘So?’
‘So . . . what happens when you catch a cold, or you start to age like a normal person, or you, I don’t know, you go to a pub quiz and can’t answer all the questions cos your IQ isn’t stupidly high?’
I clearly hit a nerve. She takes a step back. ‘Are you saying I’m thick?’
‘Well you must be if you want to stay here.’ I sidestep her and walk towards the trees, my boots slapping the grass, my body rigid and prickling with rage.
But she runs after me, catching me by the arm. ‘Violet, please try and understand, I’ve never fitted in, not anywhere. This is the first place I haven’t felt different.’
‘Poor Alice. It must be hard being so beautiful.’ I wrench my arm from her grasp.
‘That’s not what I mean.’ She circles in front of me, blocking my path. ‘I’m happy here.’
‘Oh and it’s all about you, isn’t it? Have you even thought about Katie? About what Thorn will do to her when he realizes you’re only here to get naked with Willow?’
Something crosses her face, an expression I can’t quite read. Guilt? Regret? And that’s when I notice for the first time that she no longer wears her split-heart necklace.
The treachery deepens in my gut. ‘You’re not just sabotaging our chances of getting home. You’re risking our lives.’
‘Thorn won’t hurt Katie, he fancies her too much . . . It was clearly just a threat.’
‘You tell yourself that. And you tell Nate, next time some guard tries to hack off his hands, you tell him it was clearly just a threat.’
This unnerves her – her brow knots together. ‘Look, Violet. I know the guards were out of order, but Willow and his family, they’re actually really nice. They would never do anything like that.’
The anger fills every part of me. I think of that boy floating in a tank, hacked in two, and that promise I made Ash seems so very far away. ‘Is that right? So why don’t you ask Willow what he keeps in that bunker at the bottom of the estate?’
She doesn’t look confused, as I anticipated. Her eyebrows don’t pull together, her inky gaze doesn’t falter – she looks sheepish, ashamed.
‘But you already know, don’t you?’ I say.
She looks away, adjusts her sheet. ‘I saw the scars on Willow’s legs, and when I asked him what happened, he told me.’
‘About his dismembered relatives?’ My voice rises.
‘The Duplicates? Yeah.’
I glower at her, daring her to meet my gaze. ‘Calling them Duplicates doesn’t stop them being people.’ I pause, momentarily thrown. ‘Wait. Willow told you? So Willow knows too?’